The Insignificant Vote

“Grandpa, I heard today that the individual vote is insignificant because, statistically, it has no effect upon the ultimate outcome of any election. Is that true?”

Grandpa just looked down at me, smiled, and said “No, boy that is not true. First of all, it is a fallacious argument because it is a conclusionary argument rather than a evidentiary argument. Let's look at their argument and see what conclusion or conclusions must come from it.

Those who declare that their vote is insignificant because it has no effect upon the ultimate outcome are those who see the ultimate outcome in terms of winners and losers. From this point of view the only significant votes would be those votes that determined the winner. Any vote over and above that is insignificant because it has no effect upon the outcome. That would also mean that every vote for the loser was also insignificant. This would also mean that the vote of the non-voter had greater significance than the voter because if the non-voter, as a group, had voted it might have had an effect on the outcome by the ability to change the outcome.

What people don't understand is that the use of the democratic process is the means that is used to make a group decision not an individual decision. In order to ascertain what decision a group makes it requires that individuals make a decision first. Since the individual must make the decision first that means that no person can ascertain just how important his vote may be at the time he must decide. It is only after every person has voted and the winner declared that any voter can say his vote was insignificant to the outcome.

And this can only be determined on a statistical basis where numbers are all given equal status and no number is given greater significance than any other number. That is not true in regards to voting. Winning requires a certain number of votes and each one of those votes are significant for there to be a winner. So, for a person to declare that his vote was insignificant is to assume that his vote was not among those that determined the winner and no voter can know that. In fact, to carry this one step farther, no voter can be sure that his vote was even among those counted. And if this was the case then the question of the significance of his vote is an irrelevant question. You follow me, boy?”

I just nodded, a bit confused, and I could see by grandpa's smile that he knew.

“the point being, boy, is the fact that by this theory no voter can determine if his vote was significant or not to the outcome until after the outcome has been determined and a winner declared. In other words no determination of significance can be made until after a conclusion was determined. People vote because they believe that their vote is important to the outcome so the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that they are assessing their vote in regards to the wrong conclusion or outcome.

Every man's vote is very significant. It is the fact that people vote that gives democracy any significance. That means that in order for democracy to have any significance then the vote of the individual must also have significance. How much we, as individuals, value our individual vote is determined by how much value we place upon the use of the process of democracy to choose our leaders. The effect people should be thinking about when voting is not how it will effect the outcome of the election but how it effects our value of democracy. When this is understood then no man can declare his vote as insignificant. It is only in a dictatorship where a man's vote is considered insignificant and without any meaning.”